Thomas Bangalter's Mythologies: Life After Daft Punk

In April 2023, Thomas Bangalter released Mythologies, his debut solo album under his own name. It was not a dance record. It was not even close to what anyone who knew him only through Daft Punk might have expected: a full orchestral score composed for the Bordeaux Opera Ballet, performed by the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, running to nearly two hours across 45 tracks.

The project had been years in development. Bangalter had quietly stepped away from electronic music entirely in the period following Daft Punk's retirement, immersing himself in the classical world and accepting a commission to score a full-length ballet based on Greek mythology. The result was Mythologies, which received its stage premiere in 2022 before the album release the following year.

For fans expecting any continuity with the Daft Punk sound, Mythologies was a deliberate break. There are no synthesisers, no drum machines, no vocoder. What there is, if you listen carefully, is the same structural thinking that made tracks like "Around the World" and "One More Time" work: a deep understanding of repetition, tension, and release. The orchestral language is different. The compositional instinct is recognisably the same person.

Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo has remained almost entirely out of public view since the retirement. No solo projects, no public appearances, no interviews. The contrast with Bangalter's Mythologies could not be starker - and it has only added to the sense that the two members of Daft Punk were always pulling in different directions, held together by the project for as long as it made sense.

Mythologies confirms, if confirmation was needed, that the retirement was not a pause. It was a full stop. And that at least one half of Daft Punk has moved somewhere genuinely new.

Read more on the retirement itself: Tour FAQ: Is Daft Punk Touring?